Sol 5.6

  1. I bade life’s sweetness farewell the moment they bade farewell.

    I went deaf when they called out “parting”—so make me hear, you two!

  2. Indeed, I see my gathered company and the gathering of my tears

    both inevitably doomed, as the days pass, to be scattered.

  3. O you whose realm of virtue has grown lush,

    till through you it grew moist in its watercourses, richly fertile;

  4. and you who drew glory down from its far-flung heights,

    having scaled its uplands, rising aloft;

  5. you infected me with parting’s malady; and shattered

    by your heaving sighs were ribs of mine.

  6. You made tears flow, suspended in the eyelids,

    and sent a heart flying amid the ribs, shaken loose.

  7. Once Time had stretched a proud, aspiring gaze

    toward me, and craned at me a long, erect neck.

  8. But you left calamity’s gaze humbled before me,

    and showed me adversity’s cheek utterly abased.

  9. You led me to drink from the swelling sea of your bounty,

    and gave me drink from the brimming cup of your affection,

  10. until, when—overcome—I pinned my hopes on you:

    that you would exact redress and end my innermost concerns,

  11. and that perhaps they might come to their senses, after

    no room remained in abuse’s bow for another draw.

Sol 5.6